System and method for wirelessly transferring content to and from an aircraft

ABSTRACT

A system and method for wirelessly transferring content to and from a vehicle, in particular, an aircraft. The content includes, for example, data, voice, video and multimedia, that can be wirelessly exchanged over a wireless communication link between an aircraft and a ground station while the aircraft is at or near a parking gate, or between aircraft. In an example, the system employs long distance metropolitan area technology, such as IEEE Standard 802.16 wireless technology, to increase transfer range. The parameter of the wireless communication link can be adjusted based on, for example, the location of the link. The content can further be provided between the vehicle and ground station based on priorities, such as the available link speed, importance of the information, and/or anticipated connection time between the vehicle and ground station. A media creation center can be networked to a plurality of base stations.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATION

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/901,074, filed Sep. 14, 2007, and claims benefit from U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/845,131, filed on Sep. 15, 2006, theentire contents of both are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a system and method for the wirelesstransfer of content to and from an aircraft. More particularly, thepresent invention relates to a system and method for wirelesslytransferring content including, for example, data, voice, video andmultimedia, between an aircraft and a ground station while the aircraftis at or near a parking gate, or between other aircraft.

2. Description of the Related Art

Many systems provide for use of up-to-date content on an aircraft bydelivering portable entertainment media, such as videotape or digitalversatile disc (DVD) to the aircraft prior to take-off. This procedure,of course, requires the physical creation of a master, duplication forevery aircraft to be fitted, distribution of appropriate quantities toairport locations, and timely transfer of tapes/disks onto the aircraft.This procedure, however, does not provide for delivery of other data tothe aircraft or data from the aircraft. Also, this process is very laborintensive, slow to distribute, and does not support any airline orflight related data on or off of the aircraft.

Newer digital systems that use digital servers for content storage anddistribution provide up-to-date content to the aircraft by secureelectronic transfer of the master over the Internet, for example, to afacility at or near the airport. At this facility, the content can becopied onto media appropriate for the aircraft (CD, DVD, memory stick)on an as-required basis to meet aircraft arriving at the gate. The mediais carried to the gate and installed into the system of the aircraft.This approach significantly reduces the time and expense of physicallyshipping media to the various airports. Although this process is muchfaster in delivery and redistributes the labor effort to the variousairport locations, it still requires the physical delivery of devices(CD, DVD, memory stick) to the aircraft at the gate. While such a devicecould also be loaded with some airline data, the timing of making thedevice probably does not permit it to contain any flight related data,such as passenger manifest data. If a writable device such as a memorystick is used, the same device can be used to offload aircraft data forphysical transfer to an airport ground facility. However, this processis generally very labor intensive.

An industry concept commonly called “Gatelink” has been discussed in theindustry for years. This concept requires a network to be wired to eachairport gate, and a wired or wireless connection between the gate andthe aircraft. Early attempts used optical links (e.g., infrared links),and an industry standard was developed, but the resulting products werecommercially unsuccessful. More recently, common wireless local areanetwork standards (such as IEEE 802.11a/b/g) have been identified andincluded within new Avionics standards (ARINC 763). While this standardis more than 5 years old, few airports have permitted its incorporationinto the airport infrastructure.

With the “Gatelink” approach, the aircraft is recognized by the networkwhen it arrives at the gate. Flight related data can be transferred offof the aircraft to a server on the ground. Also, any materialappropriate for the flight, including airline operations data, flightrelated data including a passenger manifest, and up-to-date content, canbe loaded onto the aircraft. This is a far superior technical approachtoward moving data on and off of the aircraft. However, the short rangeof wireless local area network protocols requires that theimplementation involve modification of the airport facility all the wayto the actual aircraft gate.

Broadband satellite communications can be used to exchange significantamounts of data between the flying aircraft and the ground. Performanceof these systems varies between the lower speed satellite communications(SATCOM) based systems (X.25, Swift64 or BGAN) to the higher speed KUband systems (ConneXion, Row44). In general, these satellite links arelimited to between 64 Kbps and 20 Mbps. This bandwidth must be shared byall users in a large geographical area. In addition, the currentregulations on aircraft based KU Band service do not permit aircraft toground transmission to occur while the aircraft is on the ground. Asingle channel would be shared by many different aircraft at manydifferent airports.

Cellular networks can also be used to transfer information to and froman aircraft while it is on the ground, but the bandwidth supported bysuch networks is at least an order of magnitude less than what isrequired to load the target content.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Objects, advantages and novel features of the invention will be morereadily appreciated from the following detailed description when read inconjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a conceptual diagram illustrating an example of a system forwirelessly transferring content to and from an aircraft according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIGS. 2-5 illustrate examples of content providers and examples of therelationship between the components of the system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is an aerial view illustrating an example of a broadcast range ofthe base stations of the system shown in FIG. 1 in relation to thebroadcast range of WIFI type devices;

FIG. 7 illustrates one example of the manner in which content isprovided to the system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 8 illustrates an example in which video on demand (VoD) technologyis used to provide content to the system shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 9 is a graph illustrating an example of the performance of an IEEEStandard 802.16 system as employed in the system shown in FIG. 1compared to an IEEE Standard 802.11a system; and

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of the different frequencies that can beused for the wireless links between the base stations of the systemshown in FIG. 1 and aircraft in various locations around the world.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

As described in detail below, the present invention relates to a systemand method for the wireless transfer of digital data from an aircraft toa ground station and from a ground station to the aircraft while theaircraft is at or near a parking gate. As shown in FIG. 1, an embodimentof the system 100 includes a media center 102 for creating a master filethat is to be distributed. The media center 102 can be connected, forexample, via the Internet 104 or any other type of network, to serversor base stations 106 that can be present, for example, at or proximateto airports. Servers or base stations 106 are each capable of wirelesslytransmitting content to be received by transceivers on aircraft 108, forexample. Specifically, the servers or base stations 106 utilizehigh-speed, long distance metropolitan area network technology (such asin accordance with IEEE Standard 802.16) instead of high-speed, localarea technology (such as IEEE 802.11). The servers 106 therefore supportreal-time, or substantially real-time, transfer of information on andoff of the aircraft 108. The servers 106 can operate without, or withminimal, modification to the airport facility, thus allowing the system100 to be deployed with minimal cooperation from airport authorities.

As can be understood by one skilled in the art, the emergingMetropolitan Area Network standards, such as IEEE Standard 802.16,support high speed data transfer (e.g. within a range at or about 20Mbps to at or about 70 Mbps) over a significant distance (e.g., within arange of at or about 3 miles to at or about 5 miles). Through acombination of a server/base-station, base-station transceiver, aircrafttransceiver, aircraft antenna, and aircraft server, the system 100 canprovide data transfer to/from the aircraft for the entire duration thatit is at (or possibly near) the gate of the airport. With the additionof carefully located repeaters, the wireless network can surround anairport with service while minimizing any effect on the airportfacility.

Any wireless technologies that support the wireless exchange of dataacross a distance within a range of about 3 to 5 miles can be used. Asalternate technologies are developed they can be considered for use aswell. Frequency selection could be determined by the base station 106 orby physical location of the aircraft 108, and high bandwidth isdesirable.

It should also be noted that communication does not have to berestricted to information exchanged between the base station 106 and theaircraft 108. Rather, aircraft 108 can communicate directly each otherwith or without a base station. If one aircraft 108 has content a secondaircraft 108 does not have, that content can be transferred aircraft toaircraft wirelessly or via a wire, fiber, etc., without an intermediatebase station 106. Performance improvements may be possible by creating amesh network of aircraft 108, base stations 106 and repeaters.

The content to be transferred to and from the aircraft 108 typicallyincludes maintenance data, system performance data, system usage data,and transaction information. Data to be transferred to the aircrafttypically includes content or media for In-Flight Entertainment (IFE),passenger data such as a manifest, and airline operational data such asairline memos, training, and procedure information. Of particularinterest is the transfer of time sensitive content or media for IFE,since there is a strong desire to provide up-to-date news, weather, andsports content to an aircraft for use during the next flight.

FIGS. 2-5 illustrate examples of content providers and examples of therelationship between the components of the system 100. As shown in FIG.2, the operations center 102 can communicate with, and thus receiveinformation from (or exchange information with) web content providers110, movie content providers 112, web MP3 audio providers 114,Aeronautical Radio, Inc. (ARINC) providers 116, and SociétéInternationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiques (SITA) providers 118,to name a few, as well as an airline operations center 120 and analternate server site 122. As shown in FIG. 3, in particular, the basestation 106 in one example communicates with a filler-panel mountantenna/receiver 124 that is mounted in the aircraft 108.

FIGS. 4 and 5 further illustrate the various types of content that canbe exchanged between the operations center 102 and the aircraft 108, andthe various types of components that can communicate with the operationscenter 102. FIG. 5, in particular, illustrates that the operationscenter 102 can communicate with a file server pool 130, a SATCOM network132, a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) IEEEStandard 802.16 network 134, a wireless fidelity (WIFI) IEEE Standard802.11a network 136, a global satellite for mobile/general packet radioservice/G3 (GSM/GPRS/G3) network 138 (e.g., a cell phone technologynetwork), a universal serial bus (USB) device 140 such as a memorystick, a top level domain (TDL) device 142 such as a removable harddrive loaded on board an aircraft, and a page description language (PDL)device 144 such as a portable loader carried on board an aircraft, toname a few. As stated above, the base station 106 provides for areal-time, high-speed data link on and off of the aircraft 108 that canbe used while the aircraft 108 is on the ground, such that additionalsystems can be connected on both the aircraft side as well as the groundside. These systems can be used to exchange information such as securityvideo, flight related information, and so on. The content can be loadeddaily, monthly, or as frequently as desired.

As can be appreciated from FIGS. 3-5, for example, when a vehicle 108such as an aircraft communicates with a server 106, the vehicle 108 willexchange identification information with the server so the server 106will be able to identify the vehicle 108. The content that is providedto the vehicle 108 can then be based, at least in part, on the vehicle'sidentity. Also, software in the server 106, for example, the wirelesscontrol software (see FIG. 3), can operate to adjust the parameters ofthe wireless link between the server 106 and the vehicle 108 based onthe location of the server 106 (i.e., the location of the link), so thatthe wireless link can conform to, for example, the wireless regulationsgoverning communications in that location. For instance, some countriesor areas of a country may require that wireless communication linkscomply with a particular standard different than those in other areas ofthe country or in other countries. Hence, the server 106 can include alocation identification mechanism that can communicate with, forexample, an external device (e.g., a GPS) so that the server 106 canidentify its location, and the software can adjust the parameters of thelink based on the assessed location. Likewise, the communication deviceon the vehicle 108 can include a mechanism, such as software andhardware, that can enable the communication device on the vehicle 108 tosupport the type of link established by the server 106.

In addition, the vehicle 108 can include a traffic prioritizationmechanism embodied, for example, in its hardware and software, toprioritize the transfer of information from the vehicle 108 to theserver 106 in accordance with, for example, the available link speed,importance of the information, and/or anticipated connection time withthe server 106. Similarly, the server 106 can include a trafficprioritization mechanism embodied, for example, in its hardware andsoftware, to prioritize the transfer of information from the server 106to the vehicle 108 in accordance with, for example, the available linkspeed, importance of the information, and/or anticipated connection timewith the vehicle 108.

FIG. 6 is an aerial view illustrating an example of a broadcast range ofthe base stations 106 in relation to the broadcast range of WIFI typedevices W. FIG. 7 illustrates one example of the manner in which contentis provided. For instance, a common intermediate language (CIL) file canbe converted into a standard input format (SIF) file and thus providedas the content. In another example, as shown in FIG. 8, a video ondemand (VoD) menu can be used to provide the content, with the datestamps of the content (e.g., news 1) being updated as the content isupdated. FIG. 9 is a graph 900 illustrating an example of theperformance of an IEEE Standard 802.16 system as employed in the system100, compared to an IEEE Standard 802.11a system. FIG. 10 illustrates anexample of the different frequencies that can be used for the wirelesslinks between the base stations 106 and aircraft 108 in variouslocations around the world.

Although only a few exemplary embodiments of the present invention havebeen described in detail above, those skilled in the art will readilyappreciate that many modifications are possible in the exemplaryembodiments without materially departing from the novel teachings andadvantages of this invention. For example, the order and functionalityof the steps shown in the processes may be modified in some respectswithout departing from the spirit of the present invention. Accordingly,all such modifications are intended to be included within the scope ofthis invention as defined in the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for delivering media content between aplurality of vehicles, a plurality of base stations, and a mediacreation center, the system comprising: a first communication devicedisposed at each of the vehicles; a second communication device disposedat each of the base stations; and a third communication device, disposedat the media creation center; the third communication device having anetwork interface to the second communication devices of the pluralityof base stations to deliver created media content over a network to thebase stations; the first and second communication devices employingwireless metropolitan area network technology to establish a link tocommunicate the media content between each other, and further employinga link parameter adjustment mechanism to adjust at least one parameterof the link based on a location of the link; wherein a firstcommunication device of a first vehicle communicates the media contentdirectly, and without a base station, to a first communication device ofa second vehicle over a communication link exceeding 20 Mbps.
 2. Asystem as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the vehicle is an aircraft.
 3. Asystem as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the entity is a base station atan airport.
 4. A system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: the first andsecond communication devices are operable to exchange identificationinformation pertaining to the vehicle.
 5. A system as claimed in claim4, wherein: the content is based on the identity of the vehicle.
 6. Thesystem as claimed in claim 1, wherein: a first communication device of afirst vehicle forms a mesh network with a first communication device ofa second vehicle and communicates the created media content thereto. 7.The system as claimed in claim 1, wherein: forming a mesh networkbetween a first communication device of a first vehicle and a firstcommunication device of a second vehicle and communicating the createdmedia content between the first and second vehicle.
 8. The system asclaimed in claim 1, wherein the first communication device of the firstvehicle determines if the vehicle associated with the other firstcommunication device or an entity associated with a second communicationdevice is missing any content possessed by the first vehicle, and thentransfers the missing content to the other first communication device orthe second communication device.
 9. A method for delivering mediacontent between a plurality of vehicles, a plurality of base stations,and a media creation center, the method comprising: providing a firstcommunication device at each of the vehicles; providing a secondcommunication device at each of the base stations; providing a thirdcommunication device at the media creation center; creating mediacontent at the media creation center; transmitting the media contentover a network to each of the plurality of second communication devicesat the plurality of base stations; establishing a link between the firstand second communication devices utilizing wireless metropolitan areanetwork technology to communicate the media content between each other;adjusting at least one parameter of the link based on a location of thelink; and communicating media content from a first communication deviceof a first vehicle directly, and without a base station, to a firstcommunication device of a second vehicle, over a communication linkexceeding 20 Mbps.
 10. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein: thevehicle is an aircraft.
 11. A method as claimed in claim 9, wherein: theentity is a base station at an airport.
 12. A method as claimed in claim9, further comprising: operating the first and second communicationdevices to exchange identification information pertaining to thevehicle.
 13. A method as claimed in claim 12, wherein: the content isbased on the identity of the vehicle.
 14. A method as claimed in claim9, comprising: providing content from an operations center over anetwork to the entity.
 15. A method as claimed in claim 9, furthercomprising: providing a plurality of said second communication devices,each disposed at a respective locations proximate to a respective entitywithin the device's respective wireless transmission range.
 16. Themethod as claimed in claim 9, further comprising: determining if thevehicle associated with the other first communication device or anentity associated with a second communication device is missing anycontent possessed by the first vehicle; and transferring the missingcontent to the other first communication device or the secondcommunication device.